Coaching to the Intangibles ... Oh What To Do

I want my employees to be more energetic.

I want him to take initiative.

I want her to take more notice of things around her.

My team just needs to be more intuitive.

He needs to be more assertive in certain situations.

They need to take more responsibility.

I don t know about you but I hear the above comments all the time and don t think I have seen too many training offerings on such topics. In addition, comments like "more assertive in certain situations" is pretty nebulous and vague. How does an employee know when and where? This begs the questions "how do you coach to these things?

The key is to build the key words into the questions, activities, and learning projects. For example, "How will you energetically get back to that person" or how will you demonstrate an element of assertiveness when completing that project" or "how will you be conscientious of things around you more", etc. you get the idea. Build the key attributes right in to the questions/.

The same can be said for activities or learning projects. For example, "Tom, next week share with me two examples whereby you demonstrated incredible energy / assertiveness / initiative / etc. You get the idea.

Over time this cultivates the awareness and transfers the ownership to the employees.